Professor Angelo Vivian Ph.D. (1942–1991), the son of an Italian policeman from
Veneto region and a Slovene mother from Idrija, a Catholic priest, Judaist, university professor, translator, editor and publicist, is almost unknown to the Slovene public today. He received his doctorate in theology and philology from the Universities of Ljubljana (1970) and
Florence (1974). As a scientist he worked at the Universities of Florence and Pisa, and since
1986 at the Martin Buber Institute for Jewish studies and the University of Cologne. For many
years he had also successfully led the scientifically oriented Italian Association for the Study
of Judaism. His research has been published in many languages, including Slovene, most
notably in the scientific journal Egitto e Vicino Oriente from Pisa. At the various professional
institutions, he searched for the remains of Hebrew inscriptions and books. With his excellent palaeographic knowledge, he was able to discover a number of texts important to our
circumstances, which he processed and published in numerous articles. He died a sudden
death during an excursion to Poland. His rich material, kept by his youngest brother Pietro,
is located in Calcinaia, Tuscany, and is still awaiting proper evaluation.
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